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Abstract
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Response to ATR Debate Proposition: 'Prosecuting trafficking deflects attention from much more important responses and is anyway a waste of time and money'
Most nations have passed legislation criminalising offences included within the broad definition of human trafficking in the Trafficking Protocol.1 Criminalising, while failing to prosecute trafficking offences, undermines the intent and language of the Trafficking Protocol and national laws reflecting its principles. Effective prosecution of traffickers, concomitant with protection and keen attention to protecting the victim, sends a powerful message to offenders that their criminal conduct has dire consequences. Safeguarding a person's freedom through enforcement of laws prohibiting slavery, involuntary servitude, peonage, forced labour, slave-like conditions, and trafficking is intrinsic to a just society operating pursuant to the rule of law.
Although prosecution can aggravate victim traumatisation, we know from personal experience with trafficking survivors that prosecution can help victims obtain judicial vindication that both the law and their rights were violated. Courts, impartial entities of the state, can affirm for victims that the law was violated. This recognition helps facilitate the healing process for a victim moving towards survivor status.
Civil litigation is an empowering legal option in the United States, and an important alternative when the government does not prosecute. While civil litigation may provide judicial vindication and monetary damages, it cannot protect the victim nor physically prevent the traffickers from victimising more persons. In civil cases, locating assets and collecting damages is challenging, while criminal restitution--which must be sought by prosecutors--can be collected using government agencies. Private litigants must rely on expensive private counsel or limited pro bono resources that lack access to criminal investigative tools...
Language: en |